Slow

Work has been almost as slow as my posting, which explains the large gap between this post and my last. Honestly, there has been not much of anything happening at work. In fact, this has been a very slow year. Our call volume is off by about 40 calls or so. What that means is that last year at this time we had 40 more calls than we have at this time this year. If things don't pick up this last quarter, I'm dreading the end of the year chewing out we might receive for such a slow year.

Once again I've been toying with the idea of closing down this blog. I started it to chronicle my transition from retail to funeral directing, as a record to see my progress from neophyte graduate to full blown funeral director. I'm not saying this blog has run its course, but there certainly are times when I struggle for material to write about. If I do stop the blog, I will keep it up for people to discover. Besides, I'm not sure if there's anyway to save it other than to keep it up and open. I'll let you know.

Back On My Soapbox

This is not a political blog, and I rarely comment on political issues, but I just wanted to say one thing. Today, I took my wife to see "Julie & Julia." It was a very enjoyable film, but one scene really struck me the wrong way. Julie, the blogger, gets in trouble with her boss over something she did. I won't say what in case you haven't seen the movie, but he tells her, "A Republican would fire you for this." What the hell? Buttholes come in all stripes; liberal, conservative, Democrat, and Republican.

To all you Democrats out there, here's a bit of news for you. YOU WON! You've got the White House, you've got the Senate, you've got the House. Quit being sore winners.

Two Sets Of Rules

Today was another boss day. I swear, I did not start this blog to chronicle the clashes between me and my boss, but that's how things have been turning out lately. I got up at 5:30am to drive the owner and his wife to the airport for their long weekend getaway. In the meantime, we (the funeral home) have a cot view scheduled for late afternoon. I return from the airport, handle a few errands, and am making lunch plans. My boss informs me that I am to prepare the body for the cot view. I have no problem with that; I've done it several times before. So I take care of it and the family was very pleased with the appearance and complimented us on how well we did. At 4:30, with absolutely nothing going on what so ever, I ask my boss if I can leave early since I had such an early start to my day. He looks at me and says, "what time do we work 'til around here?" I said, "5 o'clock." He says, "ok, then...Nobody else leaves at 4:30, do they?" I answered him that, yes, some people do leave early sometimes. So, once again, he gives me the "whatever" attitude and tells me to do what I want. Very calmly, keeping my smart mouth shut, I tell him that I will stay until 5. In the meantime, my blood is boiling because Takes A Day Off and Returning Employee have, on numerous occasions, taken off half an hour to an hour early when there is nothing going on. In fact, Takes A Day Off earned his nickname on this blog by taking off so many days and half-days last summer that I lost count. He even missed an entire month of work at one point! It seems clear to me now, (as if I had any doubts before) that there are two sets of rules. One for me, and one for everybody else. The joke's on them, though, because I just got a raise and some extra vacation time that no one else knows about or got themselves.

It Was Nice While It Lasted

Well, my boss is back from vacation. While I am very grateful to not have to cover the phones after hours, it was very nice not having him around for a couple of weeks. Today was his second day back at work, and he was able to rub me the wrong way a couple of times. The first incident was a plant left over from a funeral on Wednesday. The family didn't want it, but asked that we donate it to their church. The owner tells me to take it up there today. I tell my boss I'm going to take care of this, and his attitude was, "what's the church going to do with this little dish garden?" I told him that it was a nice little plant and they would probably enjoy it in the church office. He gives me the "whatever" attitude, but the owner wants it done, so there's not much my boss can say about it. So I'm in the van heading to church with the plant, and I notice the gas is down to about 1/3 of a tank. The owner has made it known that when the gas gauge dips below half a tank, fill it back up! So I plan to do that when I get back, but my cell phone rings. My boss is calling, he wants me to come back and pick him up. We have a car in the shop, and it's ready. I turn around and pick him up, and when he gets in I ask if he has a company credit card. He wants to know why and I tell him about the gas being low. He looks at the gauge and says, "you've got plenty of gas to get to church and back." I remind him that I was told to fill up in situations like this, and he says, "yeah, in a perfect world." So I just dropped him off at the garage, ran my errand, came back and waited for the day to end. This was the second time he had comments about gassing up the cars. The first time was our errand car; it was down to a quarter-tank, and I put a note on the board that said, "Hyundai needs gas." My boss asked me how much was in the tank, and I told him. He tells me, "You can go to {closest big city} and back on that!" Someone else can deal with the refueling from now on; I'm tired of getting attitude for simply trying to follow company policy.

And, yes, the church was very appreciative and happy to take the plant to liven up the office.

Telephone Duty

My boss has been on vacation for over a week. He'll be back at work on Tuesday. Whenever he's away, I have the glorious privilige (can you detect the sarcasm?) of covering the telephones after hours and on weekends. This past weekend was my weekend off, but with all the phone calls, 2 death calls on Sunday morning, follow up calls, etc., I haven't been able to relax very much. Between 6:30 am and 6:30 pm today I fielded 14 incoming phone calls. That's only the incoming; I had to place about 8 outgoing phone calls in order to handle everything that came up today. I'll be glad when my boss gets back; as much as I like it when he's gone, I hate these blasted phones.